Tag Archives: indefinite leave to remain

From now on, no decent person can vote Tory

By Simon McGrath | Tue 28th October 2025 - 9:19 am

I have known lots of Tory voters in my life and a fair few Tory members and many of them have been decent people who want the best for our country, albeit they have different ways of achieving it to us (the same could be said for Labour supporters). But on October 18th the Tory Party changed and I do not believe any decent person can now vote for them.

Their “ rising star” Katie Lam, who is a shadow Home Office Minister, says that she wants to deport millions of people who have “Indefinite Right to Remain” (ILR). She told the Times (£):

There are also a large number of people in this country who came here legally, but in effect shouldn’t have been able to do so. It’s not the fault of the individuals who came here, they just shouldn’t have been able to do so. They will also need to go home. What that will leave is a mostly, but not entirely, culturally coherent group of people.

This is the language of mass deportations; of our friends, our workmates and members of our families, who have lived here , obeyed the law , paid their taxes and brought up their families here.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged conservative party and katie lam | 13 Comments

Christine Jardine’s Bill to give NHS staff right to stay in the UK to be debated on Friday

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 10th January 2021 - 8:24 am

Our NHS is under more pressure than it has ever been. As I write, brave nurses, doctors, cleaners, porters, health care assistants are putting in superhuman effort to keep people alive, to comfort them and their families when they can’t and to treat more critically ill people than they have ever had to at the same time before.

And all the time taking the risk that they could be next to be lying there struggling to breathe.

It’s exhausting. And it comes after many of them bust a gut during the first wave. Then they barely stopped to rest before trying to catch up with the routine procedures and tests that they had not been able to do.

After ten months of relentless pressure, many are at breaking point. They are seeing suffering on a scale that they had not imagined.

Every day on my social media, I hear about at least one person who I actually know in real life being admitted to hospital.

As I think of them and hope that they will soon be restored to good health, I think about the stressed health professionals and support staff treating them.

Many of those staff are not UK nationals. Those who aren’t EU citizens with the protections of settled status have the hellscape of our horrendous immigration system to navigate. Every so often, their visas will have to be renewed. That is a hellishly stressful and expensive process.

If you came in to the country on a spouse visa, that will set you back £1500. And you’ll have to pay it again to renew it after two and a half years. You also have to pay £624 PER YEAR in NHS surcharge.

So, that’s nearly 5 grand for the first five years. Then you can apply for indefinite leave to remain. That will set you back another £2400.

We’re at pretty much £7,500. On a nurse’s salary? Are you having a laugh? And if you have kids who are not UK nationals, you have to pay for them too.

Right from the start of the pandemic, Lib Dem MP Christine Jardine has been trying to get the Government to give indefinite leave to remain to healthcare staff and their spouses and children.
This week, her Bill is debated reaches its next parliamentary stage. It says:

BE IT ENACTED by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—

Indefinite leave to remain

(1) An eligible person has indefinite leave to remain in the United Kingdom.

(2) The Secretary must, on request from an eligible person, issue physical documentary proof of that indefinite leave to remain as soon as reasonably practicable.

(3) No fee may be charged for issuing a proof under subsection (2)./ol>

Simple. The right to stay for free for those who have been braving the pandemic, taking that risk, and their families.

Here she is introducing the Bill back in September:

The party has released a campaign video and we can expect more in the next few days: